Thursday, July 22, 2010

First off, I'm happy to report another 3 month replacement period. I went 88 days and my left one started to make some noise. They still hadn't quite or failed, so I've been really happy with the duration lately.

Now down to business...

We finally got our pool setup in the back yard and I've been dying to do some good swim tests when I haven't been worried about them failing right before a road trip or something. So, for two weeks I've been swimming several times, doing just normal activities in the pool and they've worked great. The old models used to cut out as soon as they got wet and then would occasionally turn back on once they dried out. These don't do that at all.

Happy to say at this point I'm leaving my ear plugs behind and loving the new design. I've got a scout camp coming up in two weeks. The past two years I've had to mostly sit out the water activities which has been a real bummer. Now I've got 3 days of water activities planned for them and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll try to get an update afterward with my experience.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Just had my Lyrics swapped out after nearly 3 months. I think I adjusted them on 2 occasions during that time, both when I went to a motocross race. Otherwise I didn't have to mess with the volume or even putting them to sleep or turning them off. I really think the less adjustments the better when it comes to saving battery life. It may also be attributed to the new model they started installing this year.

My swap took about 5 minutes start to finish and was painless as usual.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Just read the news that the company that makes the Lyric has been purchaged by Sonova, which also owns Phonak. You can read some details here: Reuters Article

Phonak was my favorite hearing aid company before I got the Lyrics, so I'm pretty happy to hear about this. I think Phonak has always been a real leader on the technology front with FM, Bluetooth, remotes, etc. I hope this infusion of cash into the company will allow them to grow and improve the Lyric.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

So I had to do a test on my audiologist today. Hopefully she won't be mad, but it has a good ending :)

My left lyric has seemed a little quiet the last day or 2, so I sent my audiologist an email this morning and asked if I could come by for a replacement. She replied an hour or so later and said I could stop by anytime this morning.

I pulled up into the parking lot at 11am exactly and walked into the clinic. I waited about 1 min before she stepped out of her office, swapped the devices, turned them on and I was good to go. I just got back in my truck and looked at the clock and it said 11:09am. Awesome! And that even included a quick chat on how things are going.

I'm not sure my audiologist is the exception, but that is the way it is supposed to work with these devices. It kills me to read stories from other users that get poor customer service from their audiologist after spending all that money. It just isn't that hard.

Monday, October 5, 2009

I thought I would post an update on my latest experiences with the Lyric. I've had a busy summer with lots of outdoor events and sports and found some new creative ways to deal with different environments.

First off, I'm happy to say that I now go DAYS without thinking about my hearing aids. It really is amazing to think that I used to have to take them in and out each morning, deal with batteries each week and then still make adjustments a few times a day. Now I go days without even thinking about them, let alone make any sort of adjustment.

Anyway, back to the new ideas. This summer I had a few water sports activities lined up. 1st was a trip with my local Boy Scouts to a lake, then another was 5 days at Lake Powell on a house boat, (yeah, I know... tough life!). Anyway, I've been looking for more ways to deal with being around the water and this time I really put Doc's Pro Plugs to the test. My audiologist also gave me an Ear Band-It. I may have looked kind of silly, but I was able to swim, wake board, ski, etc. all while keeping my Lyrics in and working. It was awesome! I'm going to try to post up some photos and more details of the process, but it's been great to find a way to spend time with my kids in the pool without having to sit on the sidelines.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Yikes, it's been a year. Sorry for not posting for so long. I keep waiting until I have time to post a nice detailed summary, but I don't think I'll ever get the time. So here's a quick summary for those eagerly awaiting an update :)

The past year has been awesome! I just renewed my Lyric subscription last week after having my last set last me 88 days, (wow!). They really have been life changing for me. It's amazing how many people come up to me now and ask why I don't wear hearing aids anymore and how I was cured. I unfortunately have to tell them that I haven't been cured, but have the next best thing.

On average I'm getting between 2 - 3 months between fittings. My Audiologist made a change 3 months ago to lower the compression setting which has also made a big improvement. I no longer get the annoying sound variations when moving from loud to quiet sounds quickly. I've also found that after about 2 months in my ear that the crud seems to build up enough that I occasionally bump up the volume a notch on them to milk them for the last month. This drives my audiologist crazy because she just tells me to come in and get them swapped out instead.

My Audiologist has still been great to work with. I send her an email when I need a replacement and usually swing by for a 5 min appointment on my lunch hour and I'm done. If I didn't bug her with questions during my visit I'd probably be done in 2 minutes or less. It's really simple.

I've also found a solution that I'm really happy with for headphones and the airplane. Ended up buying some Sennheiser on the ear noise canceling headphones. They sound the best when I just put my Lyrics to sleep. It has been great to have a nice, higher fidelity source for music again.

Feel free to send questions or posts my way. I'll try to do better getting some updates in the future.

Monday, August 25, 2008

First off, sorry for the long delay on my last post. I've been holding off until I could get some time to write up a nice detailed report. But I guess that defeats the purpose of a blog anyway. I'm going to try to start posting shorter and more frequently to keep everyone up to date.

If you've been following along, you'll see that my trail had gone really well, so the purchase really came down to evaluating the benefit to the cost. I had a good chunk allocated in my flexible spending this year in anticipation of doing something, so I pulled that all out and didn't end up needing to take too much out of pocket.

My audiologist worked with the engineers on a few of my complaints and we ended up making an adjustment on the low frequency cut setting. This setting basically controls how low frequency sounds are amplified. I believe the default setting is 500 Hz which means that sounds below 500 Hz aren't amplified. We moved the setting up to 800 and I immediately noticed a difference in less background noise. I followed up with another visit last week and moved it up to 1200 and am even happier. Road noise in the car is almost completely gone at this point.

So far, I'm very happy with the decision.

Since then, my left hearing aid finally went out. This was an original. It basically just died one morning which was at 45 days. I was hoping that they would last longer, so we'll see if this is normal.